The Bar­keep­ers & Op­er­a­tors As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (BOATT) is call­ing for con­sul­ta­tion and di­a­logue with the Gov­ern­ment, to help pre­vent the com­plete de­struc­tion of the food and bev­er­age sec­tors in this coun­try.

In a news re­lease, the As­so­ci­a­tion is warn­ing of the eco­nom­ic im­pact of thou­sands of peo­ple from sec­tor go­ing on the bread­line, along with hun­dreds of busi­ness­es shut­ting down for­ev­er.

The fol­low­ing is the state­ment is­sued by BOATT…

STATE­MENT FROM BOATT EX­EC­U­TIVE TEAM

The gov­ern­ment must en­cour­age par­tic­i­pa­tion, con­ver­sa­tion and en­gage­ment with the pop­u­la­tion es­pe­cial­ly in times of need, grief and hard­ship. To de­ny this fun­da­men­tal point has left over 25,000 bar own­ers and em­ploy­ees with the feel­ing of be­ing cast aside with no con­cern of how we are to sur­vive and pro­vide for our loved ones.

The Bar­keep­ers and Op­er­a­tors As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go is con­cerned that the fur­ther ex­ten­sion of mea­sures will fur­ther ex­ac­er­bate our fi­nan­cial strain. As a re­sult, the in­dus­try will not be able to sus­tain op­er­a­tions.

The day-to-day lives of our em­ploy­ees are ad­verse­ly af­fect­ed more so now than ever as more busi­ness­es will shut their doors. We an­tic­i­pate fur­ther job loss, cit­i­zens won’t be able to pay for ba­sic ameni­ties or put food on the ta­ble. The men­tal state of our em­ploy­ees has been de­mor­al­ized and di­min­ished as a sense of doom and gloom now pre­vail over their heads. All this while the Health Min­is­ter keeps say­ing, “We are in a good place.”

How can this be a good place when thou­sands of cit­i­zens are left on the bread line through no fault of their own with ab­solute­ly no care and as­sis­tance from the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties and not even the com­mon cour­tesy of be­ing grant­ed a con­ver­sa­tion with the gov­ern­ment on a way for­ward.

The busi­ness sec­tor con­tin­ues to be dec­i­mat­ed while cit­i­zens are al­lowed to have pri­vate par­ties and con­gre­gate at beach­es, WHILST CON­SUM­ING FOOD AND BEV­ER­AGES in an un­con­trolled en­vi­ron­ment with the on­ly guide­lines be­ing don’t go to the same beach at the same time. Can peo­ple con­gre­gate on beach­es and con­sume food and bev­er­ages with­out re­mov­ing their mask? This is deemed ac­cept­able by the gov­ern­ment while the busi­ness sec­tor, who has cre­at­ed a con­trolled en­vi­ron­ment by the im­ple­men­ta­tion of all safe­ty guide­lines and pro­to­cols, are be­ing de­nied the op­por­tu­ni­ty of pro­vid­ing in house din­ing ser­vices.

The dam­age be­ing done to the lo­cal econ­o­my dur­ing the par­tial lock­down of the busi­ness sec­tor will have long last­ing ef­fects and will af­fect busi­ness­es for years to come.

The Bar­keep­ers and Op­er­a­tors As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go is plead­ing with the gov­ern­ment to have open di­a­logue with us and all stake­hold­ers in­volved on a way for­ward as this is des­per­ate­ly need­ed for the sur­vival of the food and bev­er­age sec­tors in Trinidad and To­ba­go as we are at the point of no re­turn.